


'Morrow Light

by ThinkoftheWindandSun



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: Angst, Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-07
Updated: 2020-02-07
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:48:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22605736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThinkoftheWindandSun/pseuds/ThinkoftheWindandSun
Summary: When all was said and done, when the Lost Light was gone for good and his crew was off to their own lives, Rodimus returned home.Nyon was calling, after all.
Comments: 10
Kudos: 43





	'Morrow Light

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Disclaimer: I do not own the transformers franchise, or any of its many iterations.

Rodimus died, once.

When his name was still Hot Rod. Back when the war was in full swing and it was do or die every day. When Megatron shot him in the chassis with his fusion canon then air-locked him into open space.

His spark casing, melted to so much slag by Megatron’s attack, did nothing to protect his spark from the cruel embrace of open space. His spark tried. It really did. But spark-wounds were fatal even with medical intervention—adrift in the vastness of space with his spark bared it was only a matter of time before it guttered out.

And so, it did.

The Matrix brought him back.

But the Matrix couldn’t rekindle what had burnt out. His spark was naught but a wispy fog, glowing with the Matrix’s borrowed light. Even later, after medical attention, it got little better.

Spending time around other mechs allowed his spark to absorb some of their energy. The edges of that shapeless fog alight in the faintest of flames. But always it faded again if he spent too long alone.

And he was alone.

The Quest had ended. Their duty done, his crew had disbanded. Every one of them had gone off in pairs and trios. Little partnerships and relationships that had formed during their journey. They moved onto honeymoons and home life and even on to fulfilling whatever dreams they had for themselves.

Rodimus didn’t begrudge them their happiness. He had said from the start that all he wanted for his crew was for them to be happy. Even if he wasn’t. But he hadn’t thought—hadn’t truly worked it out—that he would be left alone in the end.

All alone in a way he hadn’t been since Nyon had first burned at his servos. Not since he had first discovered that his choice to remain neutral had been stolen from him as surely as Nyon had been destroyed.

Now, alone, he stood in the shadow of his greatest crime. His greatest failure. And, even, his greatest love.

For nothing in his life had ever been as beloved and hated as Nyon. A refuge, a home, and a tomb all in one. A memory, nowadays.

He walked slowly towards the ruins. His pedes taking him down half-remembered streets turned rubble. Within minutes his paint was greyed out with soot.

His spark chamber throbbed and ached. As though it was shrinking in on itself with every step. Rodimus reached up and clutched at his chassis with one servo, optics overheating with the pain.

Still, he didn’t stop walking.

Nyon was naught but a shell of its former self. Which, ironically, had been a shell of its former self.

Buildings were crumbled. Some were still standing, one or two walls leaning on each other over piles of rubble. Neon lights lay shattered and melted into twisted shapes in the old streets. Lampposts were half-melted spires of metal—ready to pierce anything that fell upon their tips.

Worse still were the streets themselves. The metal had been warped by the intense heat so severely they were like the waves of Earth’s sea. Difficult to walk just for the fact that his processor had difficulty predicting where his pede would land. More than once he lost his footing and skidded onto his aft.

And yet, the worst of all wasn’t Nyon itself.

No. The worst were the frames littered about its remains. Scattered, tortured things. Twisted up in agony. Grey where they weren’t black with soot. Some so melted they had actually fused with whatever ground or rubble they lay upon. Not a one of them recognizable anymore.

If Rodimus had the capability, he would have retched.

But his fuel tanks had run dry breams ago. Around the same time that his spark had begun feeling like a washed-out supernova.

He walked the streets of his city, optics overheating, frame failing him. And he knew loneliness down to what was left of his spark.

“I missed you,” he whispered to the ruins, with was was left of his vocalizer.

Old songs—rebellious things that insulted the primes as often as they cried for aid—fell from his lips like half-forgotten prayers. Hymns that existed in his memory only. Remnants of the dead. Just like the ruins around him.

He staggered to a stop in the middle of a street. Hopelessly lost. And yet, happy for it.

Helm tilting back to look up at the stars, he imagined that he could still see the flames burning high—the red sky blazing.

“You pray you’ll see the ‘morrow bright, or at least to die there overnight. On rusted streets beneath the heights, neon won’t turn on tonight. On broken prayers you’ll spend your spite, praying for that flickering light,” he sang.

Static spit and crackled through his words. Ghosting them out in a faint warble. Not that he had a great singing voice at the best of times. Too enthusiastic, Drift had once said, laughing.

Drift hadn’t laughed with him in a long, long time.

Rodimus sank to his knees. Something snapped; a cable or maybe a hinge. He couldn’t tell through the haze overtaking his processor. The glitches and fogged out readings that preceded offlining. Somehow, the familiar sight made him smile.

Maybe it was the grief, or the guilt, or maybe it was the relief that for once he didn’t have the world on his shoulders. But kneeling in the ruins of his home, dying there, felt right in a way he couldn’t explain.

Cybertronians weren’t meant to be alone. Cybertronians with damaged sparks couldn’t survive alone. Everyone knew that.

And maybe Rodimus deserved it, after everything. He certainly thought so. But he thought, also, that it was better this way. Better to be alone than to drag his crew down with him.

Self-sacrifice was cheap. He had known it from the start, for all the Optimus and the Autobots touted its greatness. But this wasn’t that.

This was giving in to a defeat long in the making.

This was—

This was Nyon calling him home.

He let his optics flicker off. Gave up on his vocalizer, which was already a lost cause. And, kneeling there in the street, he bared his spark chamber. What was left of his spark there for the ghosts and the ruins to see.

Then, he lit himself aflame.

Nyon was calling him home.

And Rodimus would answer, burning.

One last time, Nyon burned.

One last time, Rodimus burned.

And the Prime that wasn’t, was no more.

**Author's Note:**

> This was born out of a thought that's plagued me for a while: what's the conclusion of Rodimus continually saying that he'd take whatever he could get as long as his crew was happy. And also exploring what it means for a transformer to die and come back.


End file.
